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Bumi Cha, VIWS 2026

Together we are better
Sharing, caring, inspiring:
the many faces of children’s content.

The preselection, April 2025

Bumi Cha (2004), South Korea; Stefania Serafinescu (1996), Romania; Booali Tooba (1996), Iran; and Lee Hsuan Jung (1994), Taiwan, were chosen from the candidates for the 59th edition of the Illustrators Exhibition. The theme we proposed was ‘faces’, not necessarily human ones, viewed from the front, direct gazes that represent the immersion in, and identification with, the stories they read.

BCBF Illustrators Annual 2025

The 4 selected finalists.

It's Bumi

For us Bumi Cha’s proposals, her drawing and her way of seeing a portrait showed great promise. In her drawing the boundaries that define the shapes play dynamically between what is outside and what is within. This delicate ambiguity fascinated us and seemed to be the most suitable way to convey the diversity of the faces that attend BCBF.

6 short workshop sessions, July 2025

Bumi Cha arrived from South Korea and joined us on the morning of July 15th. The studio was all set to welcome her and put her in the best possible position to understand what the Bologna Children’s Book Fair is, its atmosphere, and its story that can be told through thousands of objects.   The theme for 2026 will be permeated by faces, features and portraits. From the forehead to the chin, A space in which to build a dense and intense relationship between gazes.   We were to work together on 6 visual exercises. Small practical workshops to better understand the theme and to culminate in designing a matrix. We try not to fall into the “labile fantasizing” that Italo Calvino spoke of, rather we aim to cultivate the imagination methodically, persevering to seek out the image-pattern best suited to BCBF 2026.

Exercise 1

All Kinds of Characters / Observe and group the portraits according to common criteria. 

Exercise 2

Pareidolia / Divide each portrait into 6 parts. Do not crop the feature you are interested in. You are free to divide the sheet as you prefer. Look at the 144 cut-outs and decide whether and how to group them.

Exercise 3

The Physiognomic Machine / Create 2 portraits each (one good and one bad) using 6 of the 144 parts cut out in exercise 2. Each portrait must contain six pieces of paper. 
Bumi Cha, VIWS 2026